issue two / celestial
Metamorphosis
Shreya Senthilkumar
after Mary Oliver
And so it begins: cherry blossoms finally
blooming, butterflies returning to the
open fields, our skin drying from the slick
showers that battered mountains
into canyons, splitting the toughest of
rocks into pieces— and the love
which once wounded us, made us break
like delicate daisies— has turned itself over
to this new season of us.
Author’s Note: this poem is a golden shovel poem based on “Her Grave” by Mary Oliver. Golden shovel poems take a line from a poem and end each line in the new poem with a word from the original line
And so it begins: cherry blossoms finally
blooming, butterflies returning to the
open fields, our skin drying from the slick
showers that battered mountains
into canyons, splitting the toughest of
rocks into pieces— and the love
which once wounded us, made us break
like delicate daisies— has turned itself over
to this new season of us.
Author’s Note: this poem is a golden shovel poem based on “Her Grave” by Mary Oliver. Golden shovel poems take a line from a poem and end each line in the new poem with a word from the original line
Shreya Senthilkumar (she/her) is currently a high school student living in North Carolina. She is a staff contributor for The Lunar Journal and a columnist for Ice Lolly Review. When she is not writing, she can be found wandering around Barnes and Noble or managing her school’s calligraphy club. You can follow her on Twitter @http_shreya.